Leptogenesis from spin-gravity coupling following inflation

The energy levels of the left- and the right-handed neutrinos are split in the background of gravitational waves generated during inflation, which, in presence of lepton-number-violating interactions, gives rise to a net lepton asymmetry at equilibrium. Lepton number violation is achieved by the same dimension five operator which gives rise to neutrino masses after electroweak symmetry breaking. A net baryon asymmetry of the same magnitude can be generated from this lepton asymmetry by electroweak sphaleron processes.     

A phenomenological model for bake hardening in minimal carbon steels

The essence of bake hardening is to exploit the classical strain ageing in a positive way to increase the strength of the formed steel sheets used in outer body panel of a passenger car during the paint-baking operation. A new model that takes into account the strengthening contributions from Cottrell atmosphere and precipitate formation has been developed in the present work. The model predicts the increase in strength as a function of the amount of free solute C (calculated as a function of the annealing temperature), the amount of deformation, ageing temperature and time. The model predictions have been found to agree quite well with the experimental results; the individual contributions of Cottrell atmosphere and precipitation strengthening have been quantified.     

An Unexpected Role of Hyaluronic Acid in Trafficking siRNA Across the Cellular Barrier: The First Biomimetic,Anionic, Non‐Viral Transfection Method

Circulating nucleic acids, such as short interfering RNA (siRNA), regulate many biological processes; however, the mechanism by which these molecules enter the cell is poorly understood. The role of extracellular‐matrix‐derived polymers in binding siRNAs and trafficking them across the plasma membrane is reported. Thermal melting, dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, and computational analysis indicate that hyaluronic acid can stabilize siRNA via hydrogen bonding and Van der Waals interactions. This stabilization facilitated HA size‐ and concentration‐dependent gene silencing in a CD44‐positive human osteosarcoma cell line (MG‐63) and in human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs). This native HA‐based siRNA transfection represents the first report on an anionic, non‐viral delivery method that resulted in approximately 60 % gene knockdown in both cell types tested, which correlated with a reduction in translation levels.     

Organization of microscale objects using a microfabricated optical fiber

We demonstrate the use of a single fiber-optic axicon device for organization of microscopic objects using longitudinal optical binding. Further, by manipulating the shape of the fiber tip, part of the emanating light was made to undergo total internal reflection in the conical tip region, enabling near-field trapping. Near-field trapping resulted in trapping and self-organization of long chains of particles along azimuthal directions (in contrast to the axial direction, observed in the case of large tip cone angle far-field trapping).     

Effects of liquid superheat during solidification of pure metals in a square cavity

Numerical investigations on the effects of liquid superheat during solidification of a pure metal (tin) in a square cavity have been performed. Natural convection in the melt is established in a small time compared to the duration of solidification. At high degrees of superheat (ΔT _sup>0.5) the average Nusselt number at the hot wall is practically invariant with time and is correlated by . Multi-cellular flow structure with peaks in the Nusselt number is predicted in the narrow melt for low values of ΔT _sup. A modified superheat parameter, , suggested in the present study for the estimation of solidified volume has been found to be satisfactory. Correlations for the evolution of solid volume with time have been developed.     

Structural ordering and phase behavior of charged microgels

Recent theoretical phase diagrams for loosely cross-linked ionic microgels with a low monomer volume fraction (Gottwald; et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2004, 92 , 068301 ) have predicted a re-entrant order-disorder transition (i.e., fluid-FCC-BCC-fluid) as a function of concentration and so far there has been no experimental verifications of these theoretical predictions. Here, we present experimental results on phase behavior of loosely cross-linked charged poly(N-isopropylacrylamide co acrylic acid) (PNIPAm-co-AAc) microgesls with a low monomer volume fraction (approximately 0.003) for a wide range of concentrations (0.02-0.6 wt %) using static and dynamic light scattering methods. These microgel dispersions exhibit a short-range liquid order at low concentration (<0.03 wt %), a FCC crystalline order at intermediate concentrations (0.03- 0.3 wt %). In addition, we suggested a possible coexistence of BCC and FCC phases at higher concentration crystalline suspension (approximately 0.34 wt %). These results clearly demonstrate the experimental verification of above theoretical prediction below the overlap concentration and also reveal that the interaction potential between the microgel particles is of screened Coulomb repulsive type within these concentration ranges. At further higher concentration (approximately 0.57 wt %), we once again observed a disordered state and this disordered state from dynamic light scattering was confirmed to be a glass. These initial results are discussed in the light of previously reported results on the phase behavior of ionic microgel colloidal dispersions.     

Parametric analysis of surfactant-aided imbibition in fractured carbonates

Many carbonate oil reservoirs are oil-wet and fractured; waterflood recovery is very low. Dilute surfactant solution injection into the fractures can improve oil production from the matrix by altering the wettability of the rock to a water-wetting state. A 2D, two-phase, multicomponent, finite-volume, fully-implicit numerical simulator calibrated with our laboratory results is used to assess the sensitivity of the process to wettability alteration, IFT reduction, oil viscosity, surfactant diffusivity, matrix block dimensions, and permeability heterogeneity. Capillarity drives the oil production at the early stage, but gravity is the major driving force afterwards. Surfactants which alter the wettability to a water-wet regime give higher recovery rates for higher IFT systems. Surfactants which cannot alter wettability give higher recovery for lower IFT systems. As the wettability alteration increases the rate of oil recovery increases. Recovery rate decreases with permeability significantly for a low tension system, but only mildly for high tension systems. Increasing the block dimensions and increasing oil viscosity decreases the rate of oil recovery and is in accordance with the scaling group for a gravity driven process. Heterogeneous layers in a porous medium can increase or decrease the rate of oil recovery depending on the permeability and the aspect ratio of the matrix block.     

High-performance liquid chromatographic separation and immunological characterization of soluble bovine viral diarrhea virus antigen

Sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and Western blot analysis of the protein extracts from bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV, Singer strain) infected primary calf testicle cells (soluble antigen) showed the presence of four virus specific polypeptides of 105, 90, 84 and 67 kiloDaltons (kD) the 84-kD being the most abundant. Anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of soluble antigen separated the virus specific polypeptides in individual peaks while the gel permeation HPLC collected all of them in a single protein aggregate peak of 290 kD. Except for the 84-kD polypeptide peak in anion-exchange HPLC, all peak fractions were found to be heterogeneous in nature having more than one polypeptide. Analysis of the antisera raised against the peaks having antigen activity showed that antisera against the 84-kD polypeptide peak did not neutralise BVDV while those against the fractions containing the 90- and 105-kD polypeptides neutralised the virus.     

Batch gravitational sedimentation of slurries

We investigated the batch settling behavior of the kaolin slurry and the UK ball clay slurry at various initial solids fractions (phi(0)s) using a computerized axial tomography scanner (CATSCAN). The spatio-temporal evolutions of solids fractions in the consolidating sediments were continuously monitored. Since the interface between the sediment and the supernatant of the investigated slurries was blurred, an averaging procedure was employed to estimate their null-stress solids fractions (phi(g)s). Besides the rather slow settling for the high-phi(0) slurries, the basic settling characteristics resemble each other regardless of whether phi(0)>phi(g) or vice versa. The above-mentioned experimental data reveal that the investigated slurries are neither purely elastic nor purely plastic in rheological behavior. On contrary to most model works a blurred supernatant-sediment interface makes difficulty in the gel point determination. During initial settling the high-phi(0) slurries clearly exhibit a finite yield stress to resist deformation. That is, the slurries are plastic fluids. However, the network structure in the slurries deteriorates gradually in the subsequent settling stage while the final, equilibrated sediment reveals a continuous distribution in solids fraction. Restated, the final sediment possesses as a purely elastic characteristic. The model parameters of theory by Buscall and White were regressed by the dynamic consolidating sediment data, while those by Tiller and Leu were obtained using the final equilibrated sediment data. Calculations from both models reveal that ball clay slurry is more compressible than is the kaolin slurry. The high-phi(S0) slurry would yield the less compressible sediment.